For Kingdom, losing access to hormone therapy was a matter of life and death, and led her to file suit in March.
"Losing my care has caused me to feel hopeless, and I have begun having suicidal thoughts as a result," Kingdom said in a accompanying her complaint. "I frequently find myself thinking, I would rather not live than be forced to live as a man."
Kingdom and two transgender men — Jas Kapule and Solo Nichols — have alleged the Federal Bureau of Prisons, or BOP, is violating the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment by cutting off their access to gender-affirming care. The incarcerated plaintiffs are represented by attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, ACLU of DC and Transgender Law Center.
Their , filed in D.C. federal court in March, seeks a barring the BOP from enforcing the Jan. 20 executive order that blocks the use of federal funds for "any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate's appearance to that of the opposite sex."
Plaintiffs and the BOP an oral hearing on the injunction motion, telling the court in April it could use its discretion to rule based on their filings.
Kingdom and her co-plaintiffs are not the first transgender people in prison to head to court to obtain medical treatment, and attorneys with experience in those legal actions say they clearly have a case. One such attorney, Jennifer Levi, a senior director at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, also known as GLAD Law, said there is a well-established history of courts finding that denying medical treatment to incarcerated people violates the Eighth Amendment.
"It's well established that it's harmful — potentially life-threatening — to deny medical care to incarcerated transgender people," Levi told 极速赛车.
Kingdom told the court in her March declaration that, in the wake of the executive order, staff at the New Jersey federal prison where she is incarcerated withheld her regular hormone shot on three separate occasions and informed her she would no longer receive hormone therapy.
After filing suit, Kingdom regained access to her hormone therapy, she told the court in a in April. She noted she did not know whether her hormone therapy would be discontinued again and that the prison continued to deny her access to feminine undergarments and commissary items.
Before the executive order, Kingdom had been receiving hormone therapy while incarcerated since 2016, according to her declaration. She came out as transgender as a teenager and was arrested at 19 years old, entering BOP custody four years later.
Kingdom also told the court she is facing extreme distress due to the BOP's suspension of the Transgender Executive Council, a program that was responsible for referring individuals for gender-confirmation surgery. The council, which consisted of senior level BOP staff, was tasked with meeting regularly to offer guidance on the treatment and management needs of transgender people in incarceration, according to a that has since been removed from the BOP's website.
Following review by the council last year, Kingdom had been due for further evaluation by the council in March for surgery to treat her gender dysphoria, according to her March declaration.
In February, BOP officials it was suspending the Transgender Executive Council — renaming it the Special Populations Oversight Committee — and would no longer refer individuals for gender-confirmation surgeries.
A representative for the BOP declined to comment on Kingdom's suit, noting in an email to 极速赛车 that the agency "does not comment on pending litigation or matters that are the subject of legal proceedings."
In court filings, the BOP has asserted it has not categorically banned hormone medication for individuals with gender dysphoria in its custody. Acknowledging the disruption in Kingdom's hormone therapy, the bureau noted Kingdom resumed treatment in March.
The BOP the plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction and class certification, stating in a March 28 filing that "all three plaintiffs are currently receiving hormone medication, as are approximately 630 other inmates who have an associated medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria."
Any injunction issued by the D.C. court should not force the BOP to provide gender-confirmation surgery, the agency additionally argued.
"It is not arbitrary and capricious for BOP to implement the president's policy directive in a manner consistent with applicable law, even if plaintiffs disagree with the policy," the bureau said in the filing.
That policy directive is part of the Trump administration's broader effort to end federal funding for what it calls "gender ideology," defined in the January executive order as the "false claim that males can identify as and thus become women and vice versa."
Civil rights attorneys and advocates have seen the Trump administration's efforts as a straightforward attack on transgender rights, and Kingdom's case is one of several suits brought in D.C. federal court by incarcerated transgender individuals challenging the executive order, which also directs detention centers and prisons to house transgender women in facilities for men.
In recent weeks, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth preliminary injunctions in three separate cases barring the BOP from transferring transgender women out of women's facilities and, in all three cases, the agency to maintain medical care, including hormone therapy, for transgender women. The BOP has appealed those orders to the D.C. Circuit.
Those injunctions do not apply to transgender women housed in men's facilities, nor do they apply to transgender men in BOP custody, according to the plaintiffs' counsel.
According to statistics from February provided to the court by the BOP in the housing transfer litigation, there are 2,198 transgender individuals incarcerated in BOP facilities and halfway houses nationwide. Of the 1,488 transgender women in BOP custody, 22 are housed in facilities for women and one of the 710 transgender men in BOP custody is housed in a facility for men, .
The preliminary injunction sought in Kingdom's case — which Judge Lamberth is also presiding over — covers a wider population than the three suits where the judge has already issued preliminary injunctions.
The Kingdom plaintiffs have asked Judge Lamberth to bar the government from enforcing any portion of the January executive order implicating medical care and accommodations for people in the custody of BOP. They are also seeking for a class of individuals who are or will be incarcerated in the custody of BOP and who meet the criteria for a gender dysphoria diagnosis.
GLAD Law's Levi, who represents the plaintiffs in the three cases that have already won preliminary injunction orders, told 极速赛车 she is hopeful the Kingdom plaintiffs will be successful in their injunction bid as well.
"I think that this court has already indicated a strong understanding of the underlying medical need," Levi said.
In 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court in Estelle v. Gamble established the standard that "deliberate indifference" to a person's serious medical needs while incarcerated constitutes a violation of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
That standard has played a crucial role for civil rights organizations behind litigation over access to gender-affirming care in state and federal prisons.
In 2010, for example, Lambda Legal and ACLU won a federal court case where the judge a Wisconsin law that sought to bar state correctional institutions from providing hormone therapy or gender-confirmation surgeries to incarcerated individuals. The decision, which by the Seventh Circuit, found that state correctional officials enforcing that law acted with deliberate indifference by refusing to provide hormone therapy to plaintiffs.
Also in 2010, litigation by GLAD Law and the National Center for Lesbian Rights led BOP to reverse a policy that had limited treatment for "gender identity disorder" to the level of care individuals received at the time they were incarcerated. The reversal came after a Massachusetts federal court BOP's bid to dismiss the Eighth Amendment suit, which settled following the policy change.
The equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and disability discrimination laws also provide grounds for transgender individuals who are incarcerated to challenge denials in access to gender-affirming care, Lambda Legal attorney Richard Saenz told 极速赛车.
Courts have found that gender dysphoria can qualify as a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act — the federal sector's counterpart to the ADA.
"The executive order is not law and does not change what the Constitution requires," Saenz said. Saenz is representing plaintiffs in two ongoing lawsuits in Maryland and Alaska concerning state correction facilities' refusal to provide gender confirmation surgeries.
"The states should not be looking to do what Trump's executive order is attempting to do. It is illegal, it is unconstitutional, and it's just wrong," he added.
In Kingdom's case, it will be up to Judge Lamberth to determine whether BOP has violated the Eighth Amendment, the Constitution's equal protection guarantees, the Rehabilitation Act and the Administrative Procedure Act in its approach to implementing the Jan. 20 executive order.
BOP in February to its staff indicating the agency would stop referring individuals for gender-affirming surgery and cease issuing requests for clothing accommodations that "do not align" with an individual's sex assigned at birth.
The memorandum also instructed institutions to halt transgender-related programming, including a program geared at helping transgender individuals reenter society after serving their sentences.
Compliance with the executive order must be implemented in a manner "consistent with applicable law including the Eighth Amendment," the BOP said in a to staff.
While Judge Lamberth has yet to rule on Kingdom's request to preliminarily halt enforcement of those memoranda, he has addressed the executive order in the trio of lawsuits by transgender women housed in facilities for women.
In an order in Doe v. James R. McHenry III et al., Judge Lamberth said the Jan. 20 edict gives BOP "no discretion" to avert the constitutional harms alleged by plaintiffs.
"The plaintiffs' alleged constitutional harms would arise entirely and narrowly out of their placement in a male penitentiary and the denial of their hormone therapeutics," Judge Lamberth said in the February ruling, later adding, "the executive order plainly leaves the agency with no discretion with respect to these actions."
The federal government's deadline to file its answer to Kingdom's complaint is May 9.
--Editing by Lakshna Mehta.
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